Page 56 - Simply Vegetables Summer 2023

North
Yorkshire and
South Durham
District
Association
2023 has started well, we’ve had some excellent talks, and brilliant attendances (particularly potato handout night). In April we made our annual pilgrimage to the Harrogate Flower Show, where we’ve had a display and selling table for many years, and many people beat a path to the stall to stock up with tomato plants. This year has been a little different our tomatoes were a little behind because the cost of heating was prohibitive, and the weather has been unusually dull for the three weeks prior to the event.
This year the quality of
our display was I believe,
brilliant, and as good if not
better than previous years
when we’ve been awarded
Gold or Premier Gold,
so expectations were
high. However, we were
awarded a ‘Silver Gilt,’
which is still a good award
but generated feelings of
resentment, particularly
as we had been awarded
‘Silver Gilt’ last year, which was a good display but to be honest did fall short on a number of points, so the award wasn’t felt to be unfair.
This year the stand was significantly improved and had I believe the ‘wow’ factor, so the Silver Gilt was disappointing, and difficult to understand the Judging. The verbal feedback we received also didn’t point out any serious issues, in fact the few
This year the stand was significantly improved and had I believe the ‘wow’ factor
Deryck, Peter and Brian
made comments to us over the four days, particularly about the quality and quantity of the display at this time of year.
The majority, of the plants on display were provided by our members and had been produced without artificial heat and light, so well-done to Deryck, Peter, Brian and Steve. Accompanying me on the construction of the stand were Deryck, Peter and Brian.
It was good to meet one of the NVS sponsors visiting Harrogate for the first time Jason Ralph-Smith the Managing Director of Autopot and his very enthusiastic team.
I think he was happy with his time here
in Harrogate and we look forward to him returning.
they did point out seemed quite trivial.
Resentment is a more defensive stand than
its aggressive parent, anger. It’s triggered by a perception of unfairness,
of not getting the praise, reward, consideration to which one feels entitled. There will always be those who are willing to question the Judges parentage, but as I’ve always said the Judge’s decision is final and it’s only an opinion. So, we just have to move on and plan for next year! To close the comments, the public who visit the show and who we are the really trying to impress, were very impressed, and many
56 Simply Vegetables